The Mercersburg Police Department has been stopping and inspecting commercial trucks for a couple of months, and area businesses claim the enforcement disrupts commerce.

The police department has earned an anti-commerce and unfriendly reputation among area businesses, according Mary-Anne Gordon, executive director of the Tuscarora Area Chamber of Commerce.

"A truck inspection can take 45 minutes to three hours," Gordon said. "We do not support the idea of holding up commerce when we have safe vehicles on the road. I'm sure council didn't want to upset the community, but the community is upset."

Mercersburg Police Chief John D. Zechman said the business community has not yet approached him about the enforcement.

"We are doing it for the safety factor," he said.

At least four businesses have written to borough council about the issue. Rick and Ron Hissong of Mercer Vu Farms report that one stone hauler has added a $4 per ton surcharge for delivering in Mercersburg.

"When harvesting crops we have expenses with truck, harvesting and storing of feeds that well exceed $1,000 per hour," they said in a Jan. 9 letter. "Unnecessary delays in these timely functions become expensive quickly."

Richard Grosh, president of Mercersburg Builder's Supply Co. Inc., said his company's trucks have been stopped, causing "unreasonable delays in taking care of our customers." Police pulled the trucks off in the hardware store's parking lot.

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Gordon and business owners plan to deliver their questions to borough council during council's 7 p.m. meeting Monday in borough hall.

The inspection

Mercersburg's inspections started in September when Zechman hired a retired state trooper who came with federal certification to inspect commercial trucks.

Zechman said he had considered adding inspections years ago after a Mercersburg citizen told him the borough should have some kind of truck inspection. The initial training proved too costly for his small department's budget. There is no charge for re-certification, other than the officer's time, he said.

An officer must have a system for choosing to stop a commercial truck, Zechman said. It could be stopping every third truck or every blue truck.

"If he sees a truck with an obvious violation it gives him probable cause, but just because it looks like a piece of crap, he can't stop it," Zechman said.
The level 1, or North American Standard Inspection, includes examining paperwork -- the driver's license, medical examiner's certificate, record of duty, hours of service and vehicle inspection reports. The officer also inspects the vehicle seat belt, brake system, coupling devices, exhaust, frame, fuel system, lamps and lights, steering, suspension, tires, wheels and rims, wipers, hazardous materials requirements, safe loading and bodies of vans and open-top trailers.

Doing all that in 45 minutes is pretty good, considering that a basic traffic stop takes 10 minutes, according to Zechman.

"You don't rush through it," he said. "We're doing what other local municipalities are doing throughout the state."

Other municipalities

At the opposite end of Franklin County where Pa. 16 climbs steeply over South Mountain, the Washington Township Police Department employs two officers certified in the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program, according to Chief Barry Keller.

"Route 16 is pretty much an easy connector road from Interstate 81 to (U.S.) Route 15," Keller said. "We do get a fair amount of truck traffic. We have had a number of serious accidents involving commercial vehicles."

At the start of the department's inspection program about 10 years ago, people using commercial vehicles were worried about its focus, he said.

"We were concerned about removing unsafe vehicles from the road," Keller said. "We're not out there to give people a hard time or write them a ticket. We don't write a ticket for every one. We try to get stuff fixed and off the road to make a safer environment for people here."

Township police found 276 violations on 72 trucks in 2011, the most recent year for complete statistics. They conducted 72 Level 1 inspections, wrote 42 tickets and issued 234 warnings.

Twenty-two trucks, or 31 percent of the total, were taken out of service. The U.S. average is 22 percent. One driver was removed from service.
Township officers issue Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance decals to trucks that pass inspection. There were 18 in 2011. A vehicle displaying the decal is not subject to re-inspection for three months. CVSA is a non-profit organization that promotes commercial motor vehicle safety.

An inspection can be time consuming, especially to document the condition of a truck in bad shape, according to Keller.

Chambersburg Police Chief David Arnold said his department does not have a certified truck inspector, but is considering MCSAP training for an officer in the future and a portable scale for weighing trucks. Trucks use I-81, U.S. 11 and U.S. 30.

The three police chiefs say they don't know how much money their municipalities get for fining unsafe trucks.

Safety

Rural highways are more dangerous than urban highways when it comes to truck accidents, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration:

-- A five-year study found that rural roads in the U.S. and Pennsylvania had triple the fatalities per mile as urban highways.

-- About a fourth of fatalities involving commercial vehicles on rural highways occurred on non-interstate roads.

-- Truck inspections declined nationwide from 2011 to 2012. More than 3 million were conducted.

When MCSAP was passed in 1982, the government put money into doing more truck inspections. By the mid-1990s municipal police forces were doing inspections.

Zechman said his officer has found trucks generally to be in better condition than when he started inspecting for state police 15 years ago.

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Jim Hook can be reached at 717-262-4759 and jhook@publicopinionnews.com.